Well I got myself my first set of LRC armor and from looking at it, it seems to me that it is better to have a few pieces with high lrc costs that way I can collect the other pieces for other attributes. This suit will only be used for PvM.

My armor consists of a mixture of different kinds of pieces that make up the 82 lrc. In my weapon hand I have a boomstick, this puts me over the 100 lrc mark. In my off hand I have a chaos shield that I have enhanced with valorite.

The boomstick gives me 20 lrc and I still have my shield hand open, is there a better item than this that I can use for the same purpose?(I am thinking specifically of the spellbooks that I have seen around. Some of them are pretty good, but don't know that much about what specific pieces are available.)

I am currently using a chaos shield with several different features enhanced with valorite in my off hand. The shield that I have right now has a -1 casting speed. Should I be seeking out a shield without the -1 casting even though it won't have the defense chance and other bonus? Which is most important?

When I get a double piece, for example two elbows, I enhance the weakest one with spined. That way if I fail and lose the piece I'll still have some protection. If it works I then try to enhance the better piece. Is spined the best choice for enhancing or should I be using one of the resist types?

I'd guess you're a mage? The Boomstick is a good choice for an LRC piece. Another good choice is the Necromantic Reading Glasses, which are available from the Britain Library as a reward, they have 30 LRC and 15 LMC. Between those two you have 50% lrc right there.

Unfortunately, when it comes to shields, all regular shields that have Spell Channelling also have the -1 Faster Casting penalty. There may be some artifact shields or Community Collection shields that don't, but I can't think of any offhand. Maybe someone can add more information about this.

Enhancing with spined leather is done mainly to improve an armor piece's Luck, and thus is mostly desired by Animal Tamers. Enhancing for resists is better done with Horned or Barbed leather.

Well, if you have the gold, you can try to get an Arcane Shield. It is SC, fc+1, and 15DCI. They are pretty pricey, but worth it. There is also the Vesper Replica shield, that has 2fcr/1fc, but it has high str requirement, so try to get your str up so if you are cursed, it wont fall off.
There are plenty of plain shields out there that are SC no -1fc, but they usually arent too great, maybe a few small resists, and possibly some dci.

I would say, as a mage, your fc/fcr will be more important, in pvm, than loading up on DCI. Eventually as you get more gold and stuff, you can try to balance it out, and get higher dci as well as the casting properties.

Good info.

Is the luck I am getting worth giving up the resists? Just how much does 40 luck help? Another variable is that I have a fairly high inscription(90s) so I can manipulate my resists. Do you still think its better to go with the barbed or horned?

When farming magery based creatures like daemons and dragons, which resists are the most important?

Unless your luck is over 1000 total, it is not worth it. You are better off going barbed for resists. spined will only give you phys, but barbed will spread the resists evenly across all 5 types. The only time you will ever want to use spined on a piece, is if its high 90s, or 100 before enhancing, with the hopes of getting 140 luck out of it.